Due Processes: Sergio De La Pava's "A Naked Singularity"

The story behind Sergio De La Pava's A Naked Singularity is one of the more uplifting examples of an unknown writer getting some moments in the spotlight. The novel, a massive, 600+ page comedic and dramatic look at law, bureaucracy, the immigrant experience, and family, was self-published in 2008. Based on the fairly little information available, De La Pava self-published the work and likely would have stopped there, but his wife sent out galleys to literary magazines and journals. A Naked Singularity started to pick up some attention, slowly but surely, before a glowing review in The Quarterly Conversation led to its official publication by the University of Chicago Press in a beautiful, dizzying paperback edition. As of today, De La Pava has a small website, no Twitter feed, an interview with The Believer, and reviews of his work in other publications. It's such a far cry from other self-published novels. It's an excellent, hilarious debut, one worthy of the author doing as much DIY publicity and promotion as possible. In a social media world in which anyone can publish anything and subsequently badger strangers about it, I'm still amazed at how little I know about De La Pava, save for his work. Perhaps he wants it that way, or he's in the process of readying more writings and novels.

A Naked Singularity tells the story of Casi, a Colombian-American public defender in New York City. He represents the most troubled people in society: petty shoplifters, addicts, the mentally unstable. The novel opens with a fascinating, edgy collage of voices, trials, and the introduction of Casi's work life. In a blurb on the paperback edition, William Gaddis scholar Steven Moore claims that De La Pava has "Gaddis's ear," and this is a rare example of a blurb being absolutely correct. De La Pava doesn't imitate Gaddis, but rather uses a similar style to evoke the late writer's penchant for voices and conversations bouncing off each other. After a few pages, the reader is quickly humming along, an eager spectator to the proceedings.

"All right continue, where did you live at this time?
I lived in the park that's why I was always playing chess there. Anyway I noticed that this man, Mr. David Sanders, would come and observe on quite a few occasions and so we got to conversating.
You became friends.
Now don't go jumping the gun that's the problem with you youngsters nowadays. We didn't become friends at all in fact we were in constant disputation.
About what?
Well the fact is I done come up with a new chess opening. And the truth is that this chess opening has confounded the grandmasters and dumbfounded the neophytes.
Great, so where's the problem?
Well the further fact is we had irreconcilable philosophical differences respecting just how good my opening was (De La Pava 23)."

These details may seem minor, but they add up into realistic conversations. De La Pava is interested in everything the characters have to say, and he also deploys some Gaddisian wordplay, e.g. "I do not stand for that kind of language either. This is a goddamn courtroom not some corner hangout (41)!" In addition to these exercises in dialogue, De La Pava is also skilled in writing "regular" detailed descriptions. Some of these contain puns or wordplay, but De La Pava never winks at the reader or engages in any needless showing off. He's a talented writer, and he lets the passages do the work. Often, one will stop to marvel at his sentences. There is much comedy in this novel, but also plenty of literary imagery.

"The snow had stopped and it wasn't quite as cold anymore so I decided I would avoid the subway and walk the mile or so over the Brooklyn Bridge. While walking towards the bridge I watched a man regaled in full Superman costume run past a woman and snatch her purse. The Man of Steal then ran faster than a speeding bullet into the subway station's yawning entrance, his billowing red cape squiggily trailing behind him as he disappeared. Everyone was kind of looking at each other not really sure of what had occurred and not wanting to besmirch the good name of a beloved superhero. I waited around for the requisite time when something bizarre happens, made the similarly expected eye contacts and shrugs, then kept walking (De La Pava 108)."

If you're looking for a strictly literal plot description, there are a couple ballpark estimates which are accurate yet don't fully explain what the novel's aim is, overall. Casi and a colleague learn about an impending drug deal, which coincides with Casi having a very complex existential crisis. He realizes that his work as a public defender comes with limitations and sometimes goes in circles against his better efforts, despite his having never lost a case. Casi and his colleague, Dane, end up seeing the deal as a way to make a serious payday. In a seeming nod to David Foster Wallace (as with Gaddis, I'm using real examples, not merely linking these three writers on the basis of book length), one of his neighbors watches The Honeymooners constantly, trying to pick out themes and links between the classic television show and today's obsession with programming. His family is rendered in a very realistic fashion--he has a loving, slightly overbearing mother and a wise sister. The biography of Puerto Rican boxer Wilfred Benitez is given dozens of pages, serving as one of Casi's many obsessions. News reports of a child kidnapping circulate through television news programs and casual conversations. Like any large, ambitious novel, these links might seem bizarre on their own, but they do weave together very succinctly (in a novel that's the exact opposite of succinct).




Casi and Dane's heist is thrilling and would be the climax (or lead-up to the climax) in virtually any other novel, since the plotting and discussion of it come and go consistently until its actual moment. But this isn't a novel about a heist. After this whirlwind audacity, Casi's attention focuses on one of his defendants, a mentally challenged young man being imprisoned in Alabama. Casi makes a trip to visit him, and toward the end of the novel, we read some incredibly touching correspondences between the two. As the letters pile up, Casi begins to break out of his professional demeanor and moves toward genuine empathy and comfort for someone who desperately needs it.

"Dear Jalen:

I checked and you can of course write me a letter with an account of what happened that resulted in you being placed in isolation by prison officials. Please do so as soon as possible so I can try to help you.

In several days, the Supreme Court will hear argument on Atkins v. Virginia. The brief in your case is basically completed as well, with just some final editing to do.

Hang in there, I know this is a difficult time. Everything can still work out, both with this disciplinary thing and with your case in general.

Your good friend,
Casi (De La Pava 638)"

"Mister. Casi/

Pleese rite me sum more letters fast please. You

don't have to tell me about the case because i just want

thje letters four the reason i stated before.

P.S.i am only aloud to get leterrs from you (De La Pava 639)."


Altogether, Casi's role as a defender, a consumer of information, and a conflicted human being make him one of the more vibrant main characters in contemporary literature. This information consumption is both wanted and unwanted, and, in yet another nod to Gaddis (especially The Recognitions), bits and pieces are constantly flowing throughout. De La Pava's comic timing and observations are terrific.

"For some reason my alarm clock went on then. The radio said I could have the world provided I gave them twenty-two minutes in return. The woman said that a man was shot in the face and killed on 123rd street while horrified witness looked on from their windows. Police responding have made the grisly discovery of several more bodies in a nearby apartment as well as in the surrounding area. No word yet on a possible motive for the killing but police are urging anyone with information to call the NYPD's tips hotline. The woman then added that a car must have its oil changed every three thousand miles in order to operate optimally but that nothing prevented one from doing so more often than that. She then identified what she felt was the best place to go for that purpose (De La Pava 524)."

The uneasy question that will likely be asked: is A Naked Singularity worth the nearly 700 pages of a reader's time? I'm answering yes on this one, even though there are some passages of dialogue that could have been edited out, not for lack of being good, but for being occasionally repetitive. However, this novel has received very accurate praise in the last year. The reviews have been positive, but not shouts from the rooftops. It's an intelligent work that takes time, care, and an openness to a wide variety of themes and ideas. Granted, De La Pava's work might not appeal to wider reading circles, but it's definitely worth the attention it has received, and is a great pick for anyone looking for something entertaining and thought-provoking. It's wholly original, yet in addition to the shades of Gaddis and Wallace, I also felt some hints of Teju Cole and Roberto Bolano. However, De La Pava doesn't copy any of these writers; he goes down his own paths. I've often critiqued certain books for being too complex for their own good, but there's a definite method to De La Pava's work. He's not tossing in his ideas and voices carelessly. This is a meticulously plotted collage of everyday life, with a mix of the fantastical. I'll definitely read this again in the future, and perhaps in that time, it will have gained an even bigger cult following. But it's great to write about a previous unknown getting attention for literary audacity, rather than a gimmick. It's been over a month since I finished reading this, and I'm still contemplating it. There's so much to take in and experience, and anyone who rolls his or her sleeves up will get something beneficial out of it.

Work Cited:
De La Pava, Sergio. A Naked Singularity. Copyright 2008 by Sergio De La Pava.

Race Matters: Quentin Tarantino and "Django Unchained"

Two nights ago, I finally saw Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained, and I'm still trying to wrap my head around the various issues surrounding the film. I've seen links for dozens of essays and reviews, and except for a quick skim of Roger Ebert's writings, I haven't read any outside analyses or critiques, although I did read this quote from filmmaker Spike Lee, taken from his Twitter account: “American Slavery Was Not A Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western. It Was A Holocaust. My Ancestors Are Slaves. Stolen From Africa. I Will Honor Them.” Before I get into my own thoughts on Tarantino's intentionally outlandish take on slavery in America, I will offer this statement: I don't believe Tarantino is racist; far from it. He and Lee have a colorful history of verbal sparring, and Tarantino has been defended for his n-word laden scripts and interpretations of racial history by the likes of black actors Jamie Foxx (who stars as Django) and Samuel L. Jackson (a frequent contributor in Tarantino's filmography, who portrays Stephen the house slave). While I believe the occasional claims of racism are unfounded, I do believe that he was slightly misguided in the making of Django Unchained. Slavery in any fictional interpretation has to be tread upon carefully--for all of Tarantino's bombast and Pollockian mixes of fictional history and film homages, he very well may have overstepped some boundaries. While this may seem like I'm trying to balance too evenly between defense and criticism, I'm doing so because, as someone fascinated by both the film and America's racial history, I'm genuinely conflicted by my emotional reaction to the film.

Django Unchained takes place in 1858. During a slave transfer, a former dentist and current bounty hunter named King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) kills one of the white men, wounds another, and unchains Django. Before leaving, he throws the shackle keys to the rest of the slaves, who then finish off the wounded driver. Schultz is seeking Django's help in identifying a trio of wanted killers. They end up at the plantation of Big Daddy (Don Johnson, seemingly playing a strange combination of Dennis Hopper and Colonel Sanders), where the brothers work. Right before a slave is about to be whipped, Django shoots one of the brothers and whips the other one to death. Later that night, Big Daddy and a group of men are ambushed and killed in their own attempted killing of Django and Schultz (the men wear white bags with eye holes cut out, a hint to the KKK and the basis of a comical discussion about not being able to see and questioning the worth of having their faces covered). Django turns out to be a skilled marksman, and Schultz takes him on as a fellow bounty hunter. As these plot points unfold, we learn that Django's wife (Broomhilda, played by a very understated Kerry Washington) speaks German, having been raised by a German nanny on a plantation. After being separated from her husband, she's enslaved on Candyland, the Mississippi plantation of the psychopathic Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio). A plan is set in motion: Django and Schultz will visit the Candie plantation under the guise of purchasing a fighting slave (more on this later) and make an offer for Broomhilda; after, Schultz will set them off as freed slaves. This is a fairly concise overview. I'm attempting to avoid spoilers, but they might come up unexpectedly. This isn't meant to be a standard review, but rather a look at how Tarantino handles a delicate imagining of revenge and justice.

In 2008, I wrote an analysis of D.W. Griffith's The Birth Of a Nation, a technically beautiful film with a deplorable message and depiction of black people. In an odd twist, Django Unchained is a technically enjoyable (it has impressive wide panning shots, beautiful landscape photography, sharp editing, and various combinations of classic western motifs and Spaghetti Western influences) with what should be a great message: a freed black slave dishing out revenge on white slave owners on behalf of thousands of other slaves. In one of his monologues, Calvin Candie expresses genuine wonder as to why a slave didn't rise up and kill his own father (which then leads to a ridiculous hypothesis based on phrenology and submission). But as a white artist, did Tarantino go too far? This isn't his first foray into violent revisionist history. When Inglourious Basterds premiered, there were quieter voices wondering how the film affected Jewish audiences. But the biggest difference lies in the settings. Basterds didn't have any graphic scenes from the concentration camps--the events unfolded in movie theaters, countrysides, and banquet halls. It would have been subject to the same critiques as Django had it featured prisoners in the camps rising up against the Nazis. In Django, we see slaves being whipped, abused, and mistreated on a consistent level. Had the film shown a free slave searching down a single slave owner in a neutral setting, I believe the controversies wouldn't have been as extreme.

Even in fictional settings, the audience has to adjust to Tarantino's cartoonish, comic book-style violence with the realization that some of the actions actually took place. In one of the most wrenching scenes, one of Candie's fighting slaves is ripped apart by attack dogs. In his parlor, he watches two black men fighting to the death (creative license on Tarantino's part, but no less unsettling), and offers a hammer to the winner to finish off the loser. Dozens are shot and killed, with geysers of blood shooting out like video game pixels, but that's nothing new on Tarantino's part. Again, it's unsettling because even in the most exaggerated forms, these actions happened in some capacities. And having them played for the occasional laugh is jarring. The "mandigo fighters" are meant to illustrate Candie's blood lust and moral shortcomings. But when one blinks and takes into account the very real history of slavery, it gets to the point where one has to ask: is this supposed to represent a universal fantasy of revenge, or are we simply watching Tarantino's vision of what should have happened?

Again, I'm not hinting at racism, and there are various, unexpected moments of perverse philosophy throughout the film. Stephen, the elderly Candyland house slave, is viewed by Django as an Uncle Tom, sacrificing his heritage and turning a blind eye to the mistreatment of slaves in the name of his own relative comfort. Candie berates him in public, but in private, the two men talk on equal footing (Stephen's observations set off a chain reaction of events that lead to the film's climaxes). But apart from these hierarchies, Stephen could also be seen as a minstrel character. He's loud, boisterous, and goofy in front of the white company, but sullen, serious, and no-nonsense when surrounded by the other slaves. This is a carefully rendered character on the part of Tarantino and Samuel L. Jackson. Is he truly devoted to Candie, or does he know what games to play to be treated better than the other slaves? I believe it's a clouded combination. Vital questions and observations, yes, but it all comes back to Quentin Tarantino. He has a right to make any film he pleases, but should a take on slavery have been left alone? Since the invention of film narratives, the West and the 19th century have provided a background for hundreds, if not thousands, of morality plays, existential studies, and plain old good vs. evil fights. But one has to acknowledge how sensitive slavery is to anyone with a conscience, let alone the living descendants.

In 2007, I visited the capitol building in Columbia, South Carolina, and I'll never forget how sick to my stomach I felt upon making two observations. Seeing the Confederate flag flying from a state building up close causes much more tension than seeing it on television or in a photograph. And tucked to the side of the building was a small, touching memorial to the slaves who lived there, with a stunningly detailed image of the layout of a slave boat. Again, anyone should be appalled by this, but I simply cannot imagine knowing my ancestors lived through something that atrocious. And that's where Spike Lee makes a valid point (although his refusal to see the movie and condemning it on reputation is less than I would expect from a filmmaker, especially one I admire as much as Lee). In his own way, Tarantino offers unbelievable depictions of the comeuppance that slave owners should have received. DiCaprio's portrayal of Candie is courageous, since he takes on the role of a heightened version of the most deplorable, racist mentalities (and in an odd twist, Candie's death is the most subdued one suffered in the entire film). But Django is a fictional character, and the focus of the film is on him and his payback. However, there's no way to depict that time period without casting a light on history. This film is entertainment and escapism, but it's it's so real in its period details that reality keeps rearing its head. I don't believe Tarantino has done anything wrong or offensive. But these realities have to be acknowledged. I can imagine some people rolling their eyes and assuming I'm writing from a foundation of extreme political correctness. But Django Unchained, for as much as I enjoyed it, toes several lines very precariously. Tarantino has nothing to apologize for, but if I were him, I'd readily acknowledge and accept feedback for such the audacious, blunt period setting. From a character and technical standpoint, Django is very well-made. But there's no way to see it or write about it without a serious acknowledgement of the events that made even the most fictionalized plot possible.

Errors of Comedy: Richard Russo's "Straight Man"

When my schedule allows, I've been participating in a monthly book club organized by one of my co-workers, and thanks to it, I've been reading a variety of works I would normally overlook. Even on my own, there are still dozens of authors within my radar whom I know surprisingly little about given their reputations. Last month's selection was Straight Man by Richard Russo, and had it not been suggested and voted upon by my book club, there's an excellent chance I would have gone a couple more years without reading it, or any of Russo's works for that matter. This isn't out of any specific avoidance, but because Russo, while being prolific and generally well-regarded, hasn't really come up in my outside literary readings, nor have any of his books been recommended to me. Even with one of his titles under my belt, I'd still be hard pressed to give a truly accurate assessment of his image or his writing style as a whole. I found Straight Man to be very funny, one of the more genuinely comical novels I've read in quite some time. However, the appearance of passages that made me laugh out loud weren't enough to overcome other, more glaring stylistic issues. And while I can't say that I'll avoid the other titles in his bibliography, the reading didn't fuel any immediate desire to add them to my future reading list.

The novel takes place within the confines of a week at a small liberal arts college in rural Pennsylvania. William Henry Devereaux, Jr., is the chair of the English department and has a variety of problems and people within his orbit. He has one successful book, published years earlier. The school is having serious budget problems, and rumors of faculty dismissals are rampant. His fellow professors annoy him in various ways, from their timidity to bombastic natures to their outright loathing of him (in an early, outright metaphorical scene, a poet attacks him with a notebook, cutting and impaling his nose with the metal spiral of her notebook). His relationship with his wife is occasionally strained to the point of him imagining her having affairs, not out of any sexual fetish, but out of mere curiosity. His grown daughter is having her own marital issues. And to top this off, he fears he has a kidney stone (his efforts to urinate are documented very consistently). All of these combine and are elevated by a random declaration--while wearing a fake nose and glasses, William appears on a local TV station and threatens to kill a campus goose every single day until the budget situation is rectified. In addition to dealing with his family, students, and fellow faculty members, he also gains national exposure for his declaration, and nobody knows with any certainty whether he meant his statement or not. The week takes several turns, some expected, some unexpected, as William attempts to navigate the various problems.

As the synopsis implies, Straight Man is comedic, with scenes and dialogue both slapstick and wry. William is mentoring his secretary and her writings, and offer this observation, the likes of which appear steadily. This is one of the better pieces of humor in the novel, whereas at other times it feels a bit too unbelievable.

"Last fall, buoyed and excited by my enthusiastic response to a new story, she made the mistake of sharing my comments with her husband and inviting him to read one of her stories. It took him most of the evening, she said, sitting there in his armchair, laboring over her sentences, his brow darkening, phrase by phrase, pausing every so often to glance at her. When he finished, he got up, scratched himself thoughtfully, and said I must be trying to get her in the sack. Where literary criticism is concerned, he's a minimalist (Russo 64-65)."

William's duck threat--a common refrain is people saying duck when the object of the threat was a goose--is so outlandish, and everyone's opinion of him is so fraught between respect and disdain, that nobody really knows if he's serious or kidding about the declaration. This balance makes for some well-played interactions, since while everyone is sure William isn't the kind of person to kill animals for monetary reasons, it seems just plausible enough to tread with caution.

"'That's good news,' I say. 'At a duck a day that means I only have to kill four or five ducks, and we've got close to thirty.'

Dickie thinks this is pretty funny and laughs immoderately. I remain immoderately sober. If he's at all disconcerted to be the only one laughing, he shows no sign. 'No, seriously,' he says. 'You did us all a favor, Hank. Last night--I admit it--I could have stabbed you through the throat with an ice pick, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought, we can use this.'

'The throat?' I say. 'With an ice pick?' I mean, after all, we're sitting here on Dickie's leather couch in the office of the chief executive officer of an institution of higher learning, as close to the heart of civilization as you can get without going to a better school.

Dickie ignores me. 'I mean I called you ever name in the book at first. I said, 'What's that hmm-hmm-hmm-hmm-hmm' trying to do to me?' He pauses, as if to allow me the opportunity to count the hmm's and substitute expletives in the blanks so I'll know what he called me (Russo 160)."

For the most part, the plot is straightforward, leading to semi-expected conclusions with unexpected courses for getting to those conclusions (a later scene, involving wet pants and crawlspaces in a ceiling, is handled very well). This also makes Straight Man one of the more dialogue-heavy novels I've read in awhile, since most of the developments and revelations come through outright discussions rather than narrative execution. However, while William does genuinely care about the people he loves and respects, his sarcasm can be grating, and some of his observations edge precariously on those of a typical cranky middle aged white guy, occasionally flecked with bits of mild sexism disguised as humorous narrative.

"Gracie enters. She's dressed beautifully, expensively, in a beige dress that looks like it could be cashmere. As her always lush body has gotten bigger, so has her hair, as if it's her intention to keep her general bodily proportions the same. She looks, frankly, heroic and quite wonderful, a brave woman intent on one last sexual conquest before menopause (Russo 104)."

While I went to a large state college and not a small liberal arts school, a member of my book club stated that Russo's fictional imaginings of small town college life are nearly flawless. Everyone knows everyone, indiscretions and dalliances are sometimes common knowledge, and people often stay in positions or houses for years after claiming they'll be leaving. I can say on my own authority that the scenes from William's creative writing class are spot-on. Russo captures the essence of many early writing students, balancing their actual writing skills with their general demeanor of wanting to be writers. William actually seems like a knowledgeable, fair writing instructor, and his students are full of memorable characteristics.

"Although they have been chafing each other all semester, Leo and Solange are not so different. Both are friendless, as far as I can tell. Neither seems to have discovered a way to exist in the world. Solange fancies herself a poet, and to her this has less to do with writing poetry than it does with adopting a superior attitude. She dresses in black, eschews makeup, smokes dope, feigns a kind of exhausted boredom. She'd like to think she's smart (she is) but fears she isn't, at least not smart enough to justify her superiority. She's pale-skinned and bony, and this, I suspect, is partly why she objects so strongly to Leo's lurid adolescent fantasies. In his stories girls like Solange don't rate notice, much less ravishing. To attract the attention of one of Leo's vengeful ghosts, a girl has to have big breasts, not a protruding breastbone (Russo 99)."

Russo wisely doesn't opt for some obvious directions--William's thoughts about his wife's potential affairs are merely thoughts, and the supposed flirtations of his colleague's daughter turns out differently than some writers would opt for (given the whole middle aged white guy angle, there are plenty of writers whom I can see inserting a fantastical affair, but for all of his faults, William is more or less noble). However, Russo's execution falters fairly often. There's a big build-up to William meeting his father for the first time in years. When this finally happens, it commands all of two or three pages of strange, unsatisfying dialogue. A goose does end up being killed, but the revelation of the killer, while obvious right away, isn't explored with any true discussion of why it was done. And the biggest problem of all is the novel's epilogue: Russo jumps forward several months, and everyone is happy. Problems are solved, characters are content, and closure is given where, in some cases, it would have been more intriguing for their to be none. In my previous reading of The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet, I complained about the ending as well, how it seemed to be tied up and closed off far too abruptly. In Reif Larsen's case, I chalked it up to a beginning novelist's lack of experience. But in this case, coming from a writer as established and supposedly versatile as Russo, it's perplexing.

I'm just confused as to what he was trying to do with Straight Man and how it received as much praise as it did upon its publication. I have too many issues with its development to be able to recommend it to anyone--in fact, one of my fellow book club participants made an amazing assessment, saying it is the kind of book one would recommend to someone who claims to like everything. There's enough variety in these pages for appeal along a variety of genres. Personally, I think its reception is due to its time. With very few exceptions, the late 1990s seemed to be a kind of stagnant era for literature. In that time, the country was stable, both economically and socially, without the serious divisions we've faced in the new century. This might seem like I'm going overboard, but in 1997, William's problems could have seemed bigger than they actually were. I don't know if this is Russo's only foray into comedic writing, but again, I genuinely enjoyed his timing, and there were several instances where I actually laughed out loud. Humorous writing is hard on its own, and even harder to consistently infuse into what is otherwise a serious novel. But if Russo is more of a straight literary writer, I'd be more interested in his serious works in order to see how he does arcs and climaxes without being able to insert a slapstick breakdown or a well-timed zinger. Overall, I'm apathetic about Straight Man, which to me is worse than outright disdain. There are just enough literary elements to make this the book equivalent of fast food--good in small doses depending on one's mood, but not meant for any lasting value.

Work Cited:
Russo, Richard. Straight Man. Copyright 1997 by Richard Russo.

"A Maniac's Masterpiece:" Vladimir Nabokov's "Lolita"

In my reading lifetime, I've missed or overlooked a fairly large chunk of classic works, and one of my many goals for this year was to play catch-up. Some of these works are daunting, not in the sense of literary difficulty, but rather in trying to keep an open, unassuming mind. My recent reading of Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita is a good example, since, like a lot of universally regarded works, it's impossible to go into it without at least a basic notion of what will unfold. It's almost shocking to read some of the classic lines ("Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins") in their original context, as well as seeing its influence on other works (the phrase "Picnic, Lightning" is also the title of one of my favorite poetry collections by Billy Collins). When the aforementioned examples appeared on the first two pages of the work, I found myself wondering why it took me so long to get around to it. Add the fact that the name "Lolita" has entered everyday vernacular in a variety of ways (not to mention that Googling "Lolita" for research purposes brings up some pretty unsavory material), and I was slightly worried that I would be keeping an eye out for the book's cultural references, rather than immersing myself in the plot. Luckily, there were many things about the work I didn't know, and I found Nabokov's writing to take several unexpected, delightful turns.

A plot outline is virtually unnecessary, but I'll keep this brief: Lolita is the story of the aging European professor Humbert Humbert and his consuming, obsessive lust for the twelve year-old Dolores "Lolita" Haze. He meets her after renting a room from her mother, and while he aches to leave the house almost immediately. The assessment of Mrs. Haze is one great example of Lolita's unexpected themes: his own lusts aside, Humbert is a hilarious, astute observer of 1950s American culture:

"She was, obviously, one of those women whose polished words may reflect a book club or a bridge club, or any other deadly conventionality, but never her soul; women who are completely devoid of humor; women utterly indifferent at heart to the dozen or so possible subjects of a parlor conversation, but very particular about the rules of such conversations, through the sunny cellophane of which not very appetizing frustrations can be readily distinguished (Nabokov 37)."

He changes his mind and stays after seeing Lolita. Earlier passages explore his attraction to young girls (or, as he refers to them, "nymphets"), partly stemming from a girl he loved when he was a child. This obsession turns into In an unexpected turn, Lolita's mother offers Humbert a strange ultimatum: she claims her love for him, but tells him to leave the house unless he plans to marry her. They do end up married, part of Humbert's desire to be close to Lolita at all costs. In an unexpected turn, Mrs. Haze discovers Humbert's illegal, carnal intentions, and not a moment later, she's struck and killed by a car. In most cases, this would seem like a too-convenient plot device, but Nabokov writes the scene astutely and carefully. When Humbert identifies the body, he does so in a very detailed, gruesome manner consistent with his other observations. He's very evasive and suggestive about his sexual activities with Lolita (saying too much with very little), but manages to be delightfully long-winded about every other topic. His assessment of Mrs. Haze's dead body is awful, yet manages to be darkly, terribly funny:

"Three doctors and the Farlows presently arrived on the scene and took over. The widower, a man of exceptional self-control, neither wept nor raved. He staggered a bit, that he did; but he opened his mouth only to impart such information or issue such directions as were strictly necessary in connection with the identification, examination, and disposal of a dead woman, the top of her head a porridge of bone, brains, bronze hair, and blood (Nabokov 98)."

After his wife's death, Humbert becomes Lolita's caretaker, and this quickly escalates into a world of constant road trips, sex, sexual bribery, and his descent into eventual psychosis. His narration balances between unstable, unreliable, and occasionally nonsensical. His most reliable observations are the creepy, detailed longings for Lolita's body; of course, even in clear prose, the reader knows that dark things are brimming just beneath the surface. Given the censorship of the time, and the book's controversial subject manner, Nabokov couldn't go into explicit, more detailed examinations of their sexual encounters. However, by being sly, the narration (as I mentioned before) forces the reader to use his or her imagination, which renders the acts that much more appalling.

"I had not dared offer her a second helping of the drug, and had not abandoned hope that the first might still consolidate her sleep. I started to move toward her, ready for any disappointment, knowing I had better wait but incapable of waiting. My pillow smelled of her hair. I moved toward my glimmering darling, stopping or retreating every time I thought she stirred or was about to stir. A breeze from wonderland had begun to affect my thoughts, and now they seemed couched in italics, as if the surface reflecting them were wrinkled by the phantasm of that breeze. Time and again my consciousness folded the wrong way, my shuffling body entered the sphere of sleep,
shuffled out again, and once or twice I caught myself drifting into a melancholy snore. Mists of tenderness enfolded mountains of longing. Now and then it seemed to me that the enchanted prey was about to meet halfway the enchanted hunter, that her haunch was working its way toward me under the soft sand of a remote and fabulous beach; and then her dimpled dimness would stir, and I would know she was farther away from me than ever (Nabokov 131)."

Having read very little of Nabokov's other works, and going into Lolita with a hope of discovering something about it I didn't know, I was (delightfully) caught off guard by Nabokov's humor. This work is one of the funniest books I've ever read, and much like the vagueness of the overt sexuality, it's an essential element--with so many illegal and distasteful goings on, the reader needs to laugh to shake off the unpleasantness. As Lolita and Humbert undertake one of their many road trips, he examines the world of motels and lodgings. Humbert's take on the American experience is exaggerated and precise all at once.

"Nous connûmes (this is royal fun) the would-be enticements of their repetitious names--all those Sunset Motels, U-Beam Cottages, Hillcrest Courts, Pine View Courts, Mountain View Courts, Skyline Courts, Park Plaza Courts, Green Acres, Mac's Courts. There was sometimes a special line in the write-up, such as "Children welcome, pets allowed" (You are welcome, you are allowed). The baths were mostly tiled showers, with an endless variety of spouting mechanisms, but with one definitely non-Laodicean characteristic in common, a propensity, while in use, to turn instantly beastly hot or blindingly cold upon you, depending on whether your neighbor turned on his cold or his hot to deprive you of a necessary complement in the shower you had so carefully blended. Some motels had instructions pasted above the toilet (on whose tank the towels were unhygienically heaped) asking guests not to throw into its bowl garbage, beer cans, cartons, stillborn babies; others had special notices under glass, such as Things to Do (Riding: You will often see riders coming down Main Street on their way back from a romantic moonlight ride. 'Often at 3AM,' sneered unromantic Lo)(Nabokov 146)."

The line between Humbert being Lolita's stepfather and lover is increasingly blurred, for his apprehension about her hanging out with other boys can sometimes stand out as fatherly worry, instead of his being worried about sexual rivals. Humbert's remarks can be sexist at times, and it's difficult to tell if this is part of his makeup or merely part of the societal outlooks and conventions of the time. These blurred lines become increasingly frenetic as the novel works its way into its various climaxes. The humor becomes less frequent, the delusions increase, and the revelations and turns become, for lack of a better word, standard. However, as Humbert becomes increasingly delusional, one has to wonder how many of his actions are being faithfully recalled. By creating him this way, Nabokov adds yet another level of daring to this work: he's creating a character who is a manipulative pedophile, but bizarrely sympathetic. When he meets up with Lolita late in the book (after she leaves him under even more disgusting circumstances, at the hands of another pedophile), he's undergoing a massive mental breakdown, and while it should be his comeuppance for his actions throughout the work, he is instead presented as a sad, hopeless mess:

"'Good by-aye!' she chanted, my American sweet immortal dead love; for she is dead and immortal if you are reading this. I mean, such is the formal agreement with the so-called authorities.

Then, as I drove away, I heard her shout in a vibrant voice to her Dick; and the dog started to lope alongside my car like a fat dolphin, but he was too heavy and old, and very soon gave up. And presently I was driving through the drizzle of the dying day, with the windshield wipers in full action but unable to cope with my tears (Nabokov 280)."

The easiest way to close an essay on this work is to examine the metaphors for Humbert's obsession with Lolita, of which there are many: the battle between European and American actions and sensibilities; the universal desire for youth and immortality, even in perverse ways; and how their travels throughout America reflect both a literal escape and a way for the two to find themselves (the underlying plot of almost any road trip, literary or cinematic). However, I like to think of Lolita as a pursuit of happiness, which can oftentimes take deluded, ill-fated forms. Humbert Humbert is a child molester, and there's no way to soften that or avoid it: both he and Lolita say this explicitly more than once. But Nabokov's work takes untouchable themes and makes them unavoidable. It's a hilarious, unsettling journey, and while no character reaches a happy ending, Lolita remains a timely exploration of a variety of ideas. This essay adds nothing new to its decades-old discussion, but Nabokov creates a world of talking points that will never be tidily summarized or finished. No matter how offended the reader is by Humbert's actions, there's no question that the complexities presented by his obsession with Lolita create philosophical and moral debates beyond a matter of right and wrong. The reader has a lot of big pictures to assess, and the journey is a marvel of storytelling and high comedy. There were many writers tackling controversial subjects and characters at the time, but few would have been able to manage this type of psychological investigation with the same kind of daring, absurdity, and variety.

Work Cited:
Nabokov, Vladimir. Lolita. Copyright 1955 by Vladimir Nabokov.

Moving Forward: "From the Back Of the Bus" by Dick Gregory

With the exception of some autographed titles and a few first editions, my book collection has little in the way of collector's items or fierce sentimental value. I'm big on margin notes, underlined passages, and freely lending books to friends with the full knowledge that it could be months until I have them returned. However, at last month's Printer's Row Lit Fest, I discovered a couple of vintage paperbacks published in the 1960s. They were encased in plastic and in pristine condition, and I spent a few weeks leaving them untouched. However, curiosity got the best of me, and my overriding belief in books being enjoyed rather than functioning as centerpieces won out. One of these titles was From the Back Of the Bus by comedian/social activist Dick Gregory.

I've been superficially familiar with his life and writings, and I was eager to read this particular work after I found it at the Lit Festival. My initial research shows that Gregory is still going strong as an activist, even with the occasional foray into conspiracy theories and sometimes outlandish ideas. The contents of From the Back Of the Bus weren't what I originally expected--the bulk of Gregory's writings are brief asides, jokes, and monologue samples, all grouped together by various subject headers (Ku Klux Klan, Miami, Hypocrisy, to give an idea of the mix). When discussing black writers, artists, and activists of the early twentieth century, the easy thing to mention is how revolutionary they were, and this is absolutely essential in regard to Gregory's work. He uses his humor to break barriers, but the overall atmosphere is one of an upfront challenge to the white audiences of the time. He mixes social commentary and says what a lot of people were likely thinking at the time, from both sides of the racial divide. The idea of comedic revolutions, especially in such a social context, is literally awesome, and considering the books publication in 1962, one can only imagine how shocking and ahead of the curve it really was. This is a fascinating artifact from the beginning of the Civil Rights decade.

The longest passage in the book is the introduction by Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, who gave Gregory his first break as a regular comedian at Chicago's Playboy Club. For all of Hefner's own criticisms and facets (spearheading the sexual revolution vs. Playboy continually objectifying women), he deserves credit for his early promotion of Gregory's material. Years ago, I remember a moving tribute from Gregory during the Comedy Central Roast of Hugh Hefner. In the midst of constant, tiring jokes about Hefner's age and sexual proclivity, Gregory moved him to tears by thanking him for giving him the chance and, most importantly, not censoring or asking him to tone down his material. As Hefner boldly states in his introduction:

"But more than this, Gregory has added a new dimension to the world of comedy. He is a black funnyman who does not get his laughs by fearing ghosts in B movies, rattling 'dem bones' or other such demeaning antics. He is another much-needed spokesman for his people, one who can reach the ear of the world in a way that makes it listen (18)."

This idea is important, especially in context. From a 1960s standpoint, one of the most vivid examples of breaking racial barriers in comedy was the banter between Sammy Davis, Jr. and the rest of the Rat Pack. According to writer Bill Zehme, the comedy, which was composed of seemingly racist jabs, was a way of calling attention to stupidity with stupidity. I find the Rat Pack comedy to be vastly overrated, and while Zehme has his points, I feel that Gregory's work was a much more authentic, real way of dealing with the views of that given era. From the Back Of the Bus isn't a work that lends itself to a capital-R "Review," but some of Gregory's passages are still very fresh and vivid fifty years later.

"Just for laughs, I've been thinking about buying one of those army rocket belts. You saw it in the papers--where you can jump fifteen feet up and land 120 feet away. Gonna take it down to Birmingham and tease Hell outta lynch mobs (Gregory 29)."

"All the record stores are playing that subversive song again...I'm Dreaming Of a White Christmas...It's kinda sad, but my little girl doesn't believe in Santa Claus. She sees that white cat with the whiskers--and even at two years old, she knows damn well ain't no white man coming into our neighborhood at midnight...be honest now. How many of you have ever seen a black Santa Claus? He ain't even black after he comes down the chimney--and he should be!...(Gregory 38)."

"You gotta realize, my people have never known what job security is. For instance, comes another recession and the economy has to tighten its belt--who do you think's gonna be the first notch (Gregory 59)?"

"I'm really kidding. Florida happens to be one of the most liberal states in the South. Why I can go to any place I like--restaurants, nightclubs, theaters--and I only have to do one thing. Change my name to Ricardo (Gregory 89)."

While I'm sure From the Back Of the Bus has its own following and has received its own attention despite the fact that I'm new to its existence, I was also fascinated by its combination of text and photography. The photos are the work of Jerry Yulsman, and the images tie very carefully into Dick Gregory's texts. These are not random images, but rather carefully constructed placements that give the work a layered, multimedia atmosphere. The images I've included, combined with the texts and captions, are a combination of mild humor and intense juxtapositions. The above image of Gregory in a fancy tuxedo and top hat, accompanied with the remark "Whaddya mean--I depreciate your property..." is still striking and yet again takes on increased significance with its era. It's impossible to tell whether these images are more from the imagination of Gregory or Yulsman, but I can imagine the two men sharing ideas of how to place the man in context with his surroundings, and, in effect, place his ideas within a then-contemporary context. My favorite image is the last one included, featuring a suited Gregory standing in a building that is either under construction or hollowed out from neglect. The connotations take on so many meanings, reflecting success in the face of failure, as well as Gregory's own journey of personal success and early substandard living. Yulsman's photos are not just random accompaniments; his closeups and long shots of Gregory are stunning, unheralded examples of striking photographic art, challenging stereotypes as well as engaging in hip, self-aware conversations about black consciousness and the still-ongoing struggles of race in America.

In some cases, these assessments would be a stretch, but in today's world, there is still a struggle with bigotry and reflections on race relations. While Gregory's words and Yulsman's photographs are still meaningful today, I feel the importance comes from placing them in their original context. While America still has a long way to go with its race dialogues, it's stunning to see these groundbreaking works of art and realize how they shook up and subverted the mindset of the 1960s world. In short, and without any hyperbole, From the Back Of the Bus still maintains its groundbreaking emotions, and I'm hoping it eventually finds its way back in print, not only because of its sociological weight, but also because of its terrific comedy and willingness to start dialogues that are still needed.

"On the other hand, if you've liked the book--don't tell you friends. Just take me to lunch when it's not Brotherhood Week (Gregory 125)."

Work Cited:
Gregory, Dick. From the Back Of the Bus. Copyright 1962 by Dick Gregory Enterprises, Inc. Photography by Jerry Yulsman.

Film Stock: "Our Idiot Brother"

Jesse Peretz's Our Idiot Brother is one of the most genuinely enjoyable films to be released this summer. On the surface, this is an impressive feat, since the majority of the film is a mix of plot lines, characters, and developments that have been done numerous times, in a variety of ways, both good and bad. A family's black sheep member returns home and wreaks havoc. Seemingly successful people have problems and limitations. Integrity and success are found to be conflicting interests. Plot twists and climaxes can be seen a mile away. Now that these "faults" are out of the way, the positives come into focus. The truly "original" film is a rarity, so even with often-used tropes, good writing and acting are essential. Our Idiot Brother has both, and while it does have the occasional limitation, the actors make it extremely enjoyable.

Ned (Paul Rudd), is an eternally optimistic hippie, working with his girlfriend at a biodynamic farm. At a farmer's market, he listens to the pleas of a uniformed police officer and is duped into selling him weed, and thereby being arrested. After being released from jail, he goes back to the farm, only to find that his girlfriend has taken up with a new man and even keeps his dog out of spite. Believing that he needs to save up money to rent space in a goat farm on the property, Ned returns to his mother and sisters. Miranda (Elizabeth Banks), a journalist for Vanity Fair, is on the verge of beginning her first major interview. Natalie (Zooey Deschanel) is a spoken word performer, conflicted about her commitment to her girlfriend and her attraction to a young male painter. Liz (behind Rudd, Emily Mortimer has the best performance in this film) has two young children and is struggling with a strenuous, sexless marriage with Dylan (Steve Coogan), a snobby documentary filmmaker. Ned lives and interacts with all of his sisters for various lengths of time, and their desire to help him out leads to individual conflicts. He gets along fabulously with his nephew, but Liz and Dylan look down upon Ned's influence, especially since they're trying to raise an impossibly cultured child. His complete honesty leads to tension between Miranda and her unspoken love for her neighbor, Jeremy. A misunderstanding about Natalie's confession to her girlfriend completes the family's strain. When added to his ex-girlfriend's stubbornness and an off-hand remark to his probation officer, Ned must use his simple life philosophies to help bring closure and understanding to everyone.

For a long time, I've believed that Paul Rudd is one of the most underrated actors working today, and a testament to his skills is his ability to help elevate what could be substandard material. A role as an optimistic hippie has unbelievable potential for hamming, yet Rudd manages to make Ned lovable and, most importantly, believable. Even in the most dire circumstances, none of his actions are malicious. Honesty is his best policy, and his lack of living in a regular day-to-day world is his only fault. He is continually called out on his openness, but his comments and interactions are genuine; usually, when a film character is described as "brutally honest," that means dick jokes or mean-spirited dialogue in inappropriate scenarios. Ned just wants to foster open communications, and he doesn't live life as a means to hiding true beliefs. He's not a man-child, either. His interactions with his nephew are the few times that the child is able to act like a regular kid, and in the film's biggest outburst, Ned puts his sisters in their place, showing an understanding of their situations that belies his usual goofiness. With a warm smile or an understated piece of dialogue, Paul Rudd makes Ned a combination of excellent qualities, just in the wrong situations.

The roles of Miranda, Natalie, and Liz are very strong, but also seem to be heavily influenced by the films of Woody Allen. On the surface, these are stock female characters: the career woman (Miranda), the creative younger sister (Natalie), and the modern mother (Liz). Add Dylan, the cheating, conniving brother-in-law, and the women in Our Idiot Brother could be a mixture of the women in Hannah and Her Sisters and Interiors. During one of the film's climactic scenes, the three sisters sit down with the intention of discussing Liz's predicament, and it turns into an argument over their personalities. It's a relatively tame scene, but does mirror some of the dialogues Allen has employed in his earlier works. These are not rip-offs at all, and are too fine-tuned to be coincidental. If the sisters were intended to work as a homage to Allen, it works quite well. (Note: the following hypothesis is not mine, but an extension of a point made by my friend Eric) Natalie's bisexuality, and Ned's comic interaction between a sexually open couple are important plot points, but are also admirable uses of homosexuality in a manner that doesn't make the sexual orientation itself the butt of any jokes, but rather, like all sex and comedy, it leads to extensive comedic scenarios. Woody Allen has been criticized for the lack of gay characters in his film worlds, so it's a commendable nod to Our Idiot Brother's writers. The film works as nod to another screenwriter, but with their own flourishes.



The film was written by Evgenia Peretz and David Schisgall, and the two have done an admirable job. The transition between the comedic and the dramatic is sometimes uneven, and while none of the conflicts are left unresolved, Our Idiot Brother ends obviously, with seemingly happy endings for all of the characters. However, going back to my opening, everything is handled well. Even with shaky transitions and closure, the resolutions aren't preachy or insulting. The dramatic scenes are not overdone, and the comedy never veers into unnecessary gross-out humor or slapstick. The funniest lines in the film are the most casually uttered ones, and are only quotable to people who have seen the film. A common mistake with novice screenwriters is the belief that humor has to be obvious or highlighted; here, it's blended and occasionally requires attention to pick up on the nuances. Therefore, the writers do a fine balancing act, making the rare unrealistic scenes seem plausible. Nothing is overdone, and for first-time screenwriters, everything is handled well. Peretz doesn't add any flourishes to his direction, but sometimes the best directing is the type that isn't immediately noticeable. The script and the actors handle the work, and there's no need for any obvious cinematography or flashy camerawork.

Our Idiot Brother is a highlight for everyone involved. Rudd continues to be enjoyable and charming, and can elevate even a terrible movie (which this is not). I've always enjoyed Elizabeth Banks, and her acting, like that of Rudd, is a continually strong balance between playful and serious. Is this the best comedy ever made? No, but it doesn't need to be. The diverse cast does exactly what's needed, and the film could even reveal more comedic highlights after multiple viewings. It's an excellent example of an above average film that gets the most out of average expectations, therefore being entertaining without stooping to insult the audience or relying on stupidity for laughs. It's been playing for a week and might need time for more word-of-mouth recommendations. I highly recommend it for people who enjoy smart comedies. People who go into it expecting stupidity and obvious laughs? They'll be very pleasantly surprised.

"The Pale King:" Taxation Representations

In the introduction to Paul Auster's Collected Poems, writer Norman Finkelstein offers a telling passage: "Yes, this a writer not only with readers but with fans (italics mine)." This is equal parts true and a reason for pause, since it seems to suggest that literary writers are "above" enthusiasm that isn't scholarly or critical. Of course, there's absolutely no reason why certain writers cannot have avid fan bases in addition to more studious admirers. The best of both sides of this parallel is mirrored in the fans/readers of the late David Foster Wallace. In addition to his works being commonplace on university reading lists and being generally revered by the literary community, his followers can also be a giddy, fan club-like bunch. In the months and weeks leading up to the posthumous publication of The Pale King, my friends and I dutifully shared links and news reports about the book. Of course, given that he committed suicide in 2008, any of his publications (both books and articles) that have come out are always bittersweet as well. With some deceased authors, a posthumous release can sometimes be viewed as a way to cash in; with Wallace, even his unfinished works have lasting value, and are worthy for an audience still dismayed over his passing.

The Pale King was pieced together by his editor, Michael Pietsch, and his widow, Karen Green. As it's been recounted in numerous articles, the latest novel was a collection of notebooks, computer files, and discs, with notes that hinted to possible trajectories the novel might have taken had Wallace lived to complete it. It's worth noting that, while rightfully extolling the novel's excellence, Piestch is explicit in explaining that The Pale King is an unfinished novel; it's even the book's subtitle. That's not to disrespect the semi-finished product, but a way to make the reader know that Wallace, sometimes a perfectionist to a fault, undoubtedly would have changed and edited some of the pages and passages that made their way into the "finished" product. While it's much different in scope from his previous novel, Infinite Jest, it's a novel that demands attention to minute details, has a penchant for hilarious comedy, and ultimately demands more than one reading.

The Pale King follows a group of characters in 1985, IRS examiners who work in Peoria, Illinois, following vastly different paths to come to that time and place. Their back stories are detailed, and give hints to their personality makeups that may hint to their reasons for being drawn to a career in a tedious, psychologically challenging bureaucracy. In any other profession, these characters would have the same lives and the same inner turmoils; however, the nature of tax work seems to highlight their personalities, sometimes explicitly and sometimes metaphysically. Leonard Stecyk spends his childhood as an impossible model of goodness, selfless to the point of making adults hate him, and being ostracized by his peers to the point of extreme violence; Lane Dean is a Christian who grapples with questions of faith and a pregnant girlfriend whom he doesn't love; Toni Ware, a woman with a troubling history of sexual and physical abuse at the hands of her mother's boyfriend; and David Foster Wallace, the character/author who provides legal/liability disclosures on providing IRS information, as well as his personal history of unethical behavior as a college student. The novel also has paranormal elements. In the throes of intense concentration, some of the IRS workers see ghosts that haunt the office. There is also the hint of an algorithm that can put someone in a state of immediate, almost spiritual concentration with no distractions, a mysterious entity that echoes the coma-inducing entertainment tape in Infinite Jest.

These brief summaries are not meant to be of any serious help in understanding the story's complete arc. There are numerous other characters, both major and minor, and while this may seem like a sorry excuse, even some established literary critics have professed some troubles with the book, as far as a complete understanding. Some of the chapters, while moving and brilliant, aren't attributed to any specific character. Even the most devoted readers can be forgiven for glazing over pages upon pages of tax law and documentations. Perhaps some of the frustration can be attributed to the novel's unfinished state, but that's not at all to say it's not worthy of attention. The character sketches are sometimes brilliant. For example, the sketches of Stecyk as a dutiful young boy are both funny and discomforting:

"...[his father] offers to take him to Dairy Queen as a kind of reward, and Leonard tells his father he's grateful and that the gesture means a lot to him but that in all honesty he'd like it even more if they took the money his father would have spent on the ice cream and instead donated it either to Easter Seals or, better yet, to UNICEF, to go toward the needs of famine-ravaged Biafran kids who he knows for a fact have probably never even heard of ice cream, and says that be bets it'll end up giving both of them a better feeling even than the DQ would...Leonard takes a moment to express concern about the father's facial tic again and to gently rib him about his reluctance to go in and have the family's MD look at it, noting again that according to the chart on the back of his bedroom door the father is three months overdue for his annual physical and that it's almost eight months past the date of his recommended tetanus booster (Wallace 30.)

My friend Paul , arguably the biggest fan of Wallace that I know, described his reading of the novel as "equal parts brilliant and tedious." The tedium, which comes in the details of IRS tax preparation, is completely intentional. Wallace describes it in a way to make the reader understand how detailed and intense the work is; it's not written to show the amount of research that went into the book, but to give concrete examples as to why tax examination is such a specialized field. It's not so much that it requires care and attention to detail (which it does), but that it takes a certain kind of personality to be able to deal with long days of careful readings and understandings of wildly complicated tax codes. Of course, given Wallace's penchant for footnotes and incredibly detailed non-fiction passages, there's a certain joy and admiration that comes with even the most daunting accounts. There are very few authors who could pull off such passages without losing the reader. We're not expected to understand the codes, but we're shown them for the sake of understanding the characters and what they deal with on a daily basis:

"For ruling requests concerning the classification of an organization as a limited partnership where a corporation is the sole general partner, see Rev. Proc. 72-13, 1972-1 CB 735. See also Rev. Proc. 74-17, 1974-1 CB 438, and Rev. Proc. 75-16, 1975-1 CB 676. Revenue Procedure 74-17 announces certain operating rules of the Service relating to the issuance of advance ruling letters concerning the classification of organizations formed as limited partnerships. Revenue Procedure 75-16 sets forth a checklist outlining required information frequently omitted from requests for rulings related to classification of organizations for Federal tax purposes (Wallace 248-249)."

Taking this even further, there are passages that even work to explain boredom, both historically and socially:

"Word appears suddenly in 1766. No known etymology. The Earl of March uses it in a letter describing a French peer of the realm. He didn't cast a shadow, but that didn't mean anything. For no reason, Lane Dean flexed his buttocks. In fact the first three appearances of bore in English conjoin it with the adjective French, that French bore, that boring Frenchman, yes? The French of course has malaise, ennui. See Pascal's fourth Pensée, which Lane Dean heard as pantsy (Wallace 383)."



I'm still convinced that Wallace, for all of his talents, never gets full respect as a humorous writer, and in several sections of The Pale King, it's evident that Wallace's knack for humor was as strong as ever. Sometimes that can be lost in the shuffle, but along the same argumentative lines as the "reader/fan" debate, there's also a need to understand that hilarious commentary can easily be great writing in its own right. There are very few authors who make me laugh out loud, and I did so more than once while reading The Pale King.

"'My earliest memory of shit is dog shit. Remember as a kid how potent a presence and threat dog shit was? It seemed to be all over. Every time you played outside, somebody was stepping in it, and then everything stopped and it was like "OK, who stepped in it?" Everybody has to check their shoes, and sure enough somebody had it on their shoe.'
'Embedded in the sole. In the pattern.'
'Impossible to scrape off.'
'New was always wet and yellow and horrible, the most horrible. But old got embedded more deeply in the sole. You had to set the shoes aside until it dried and then try to scrape out the sole's pattern with a sticky or a rusty old knife out of the garage (Wallace 347).'"

"In short, not only was it surprising to be greeted in person with such enthusiastic words, but it was doubly surprising when the person reciting these words displayed the same kind of disengagement as, say, the checkout clerk who utters the words 'Have a nice day' while her expression indicates that it's really a matter of total indifference to her whether you drop dead in the parking lot outside ten seconds from now (Wallace 287)."

The fact that I've been able to cull such varied examples of the novel's themes proves two points: one, even unfinished, The Pale King stands as one of the best books published so far this year. Two, even with his death (understandably) permeating the few reviews that I've read so far, this isn't a work of nostalgia, nor does it exist solely as a lamentation of Wallace's passing. While reading it, I was challenged, amazed, sometimes confused, and ultimately very satisfied. Wallace left behind an excellent piece of literature, evocative of his previous efforts and consistent talents. When getting lost in the book, the events surrounding its release tend to fall to the side, and the novel becomes the focal point, not the author's passing. Of course, those sad events are still there after the book is done, but it's a relief that The Pale King is a work on its own, even if it was a work in progress. Much like Infinite Jest, it's not easy. Careful readings, note taking, re-reads, and pauses for reflection are required. As I mentioned above, there is so much that I haven't touched upon or summarized. Taking it all in, it's a welcome addition to the Wallace canon, and the people responsible for its publication were right to see that it made its way into book form, and its unfinished standing and occasional questionable detours work as smaller pieces to a large, enjoyable puzzle.

Work Cited:
Wallace, David Foster. The Pale King: An Unfinished Novel. Copyright 2011 by David Foster Wallace Literary Trust.

A.J. Jacobs: Social (Anxiety) Sciences

With the exception of The New Yorker, I don't read enough magazines, or at least enough of the same ones, to be able to pick a columnist whom I follow closely or admire. While this idea is slightly pessimistic, I can easily rattle off a few magazine writers who irk me more than they educate me (Malcolm Gladwell and James Wood come to mind very quickly). However, there are exceptions to this: for years, I have admired Tom Carson's film essays in GQ, and Zadie Smith's occasional writings for The New York Review Of Books have been, in their non-cliched definitions, equal parts illuminating and challenging. For the past few months, I've been making mental notes to read more writings of A.J. Jacobs, an editor/writer for Esquire. I've taken in various handfuls of his columns over the years, and in that time, he has published three books: The Know-It-All, The Year Of Living Biblically, and, most recently, My Life As An Experiment. At first glance, Jacobs doesn't seem to be the type of writer that one could analyze for a full-length review. However, I found a lot of pleasant surprises in My Life As An Experiment, as well as a few essay themes that I would personally like to see more writers attempt.

Jacobs is an excellent contemporary representation of the old adage: "it's not what you say, but how you say it." In regard to other writers, I've mentioned in the past how I've enjoyed a given book or piece or writing, but could not help but wonder how terrible it would be had it been written by another (read: lesser) writer. My Life As An Experiment is a collection of essays documenting Jacobs's attempts to apply sociological experiments to his own daily life: he does a nude photo shoot for Esquire (at the request of actress Mary-Louise Parker, who wants him to feel the vulnerability and objectification that women feel during nude pictorials); he outsources daily tasks to a team in India; he applies George Washington's moral code to his own activities, and so on. With few exceptions, these experiments could be done by any writer. Jacobs manages to elevate himself beyond the basic label of humorist with some timely phrases and understandings. For example, I remember reading the essay "My Life As a Beautiful Woman" when it first appeared in Esquire. In this piece, Jacobs sets up an online dating profile for his son's nanny, helps her write her responses, and in the process, explores some of the less-than-favorable techniques of men in the dating world. But one of the opening paragraphs has stayed with me, and reading it a second time, it maintains its subtlety and humor.

"No one can believe quite how beautiful my nanny is. Among our friends, my wife's sanity is questioned about twice a week. Michelle [the nanny] is so enchanting, my wife has actually given me permission to have an affair with her, a la Curb Your Enthusiasm. Of course, she made the offer only because she knew there was no chance Michelle would ever be interested. Michelle is too sweet, too Catholic, too loyal, too young. It's like giving me permission to become a linebacker for the Dolphins (Jacobs 160)."

Going back a little farther to his introduction, my appreciation for Jacobs's style is also based on a belief that he and I happen to share. As I've mentioned many times, I've long despised the old rule of "write what you know," since I've also long championed the idea that writers (and really, people in general) should never stop educating themselves and doing their best to gain insights into ideas, places, and people. "Write what you know" should mean "write what you now know," not "accept being limited in your scope." Granted, most writers don't have the means to drop everything to immerse themselves in a new culture, but this can be done in smaller ways.

"But I'm addicted to these experiments. I've come to believe that if you really want to learn about a topic, you should get on-the-job training. You should dive in and try to live that topic. If you're interested in Rome, you can look at maps and postcards and read census date. Or you can actually go to Italy and taste the pesto gnocchi. As the old saying goes: To understand the Italians, you must walk a mile in their loafers.
You have to be interested in the topic. That's rule number one. If you aren't passionate, it shows. But if you are committed to the possibility of change, then there's nothing like it (Jacobs xii-xiii)."




The other theme that I admire is how, whether intentionally or not, Jacobs's essays are also explorations of masculinity. In one of the intentional pieces, "Whipped," Jacobs attempts to placate his wife at every turn, to appeal to her every whim. The essay has the occasional turn into the tired "battle of the sexes" motif that has been beaten into the ground by every magazine, television show, and comic strip throughout history. However, instead of just playing it for laughs, Jacobs injects an impressive amount of research into the topic, making a normally tired subject just a bit more thought-provoking. Like any good researcher, Jacobs offers a lot of secondary sources for further reading.

"In fact, wifely obedience was pretty much synonymous with marriage. Confucius defined a wife as 'one who submits to another.' [Stephanie Coontz, author of Marriage, a History] writes that ancient Romans opposed gay marriage not because of homosexuality, which they had no problem with, but because 'no real man would ever agree to play the subordinate role of a Roman wife.'
Throughout most of history, I'd be seen as a traitor to my gender (Jacobs 184-185)."

There's a fair amount of science, too. Arguably the best essay in the book is "The Rationality Project," in which Jacobs attempts to avoid every sociological, psychological, and cognitive bias that he can think of; naturally, given human nature, this is virtually impossible. As Jacobs identifies the dozens of everyday biases "Source Amnesia," "Confirmation Bias," and "The Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy," to name a few, it becomes difficult to avoid applying such mental tics to everyday activities and consumptions.

"What makes news? The unusual and the spectacular, which by their nature distort reality and pervert our decisions. You read headlines like 15 KILLED IN PLANE CRASH IN WYOMING. You don't read headlines like ANOTHER 2,000 DIED OF HEART DISEASE YESTERDAY. This leads to the Availability Fallacy. Our lazy mind gloms on to the most vivid, emotional examples. When we think of danger, we think of hideous plane crashes or acts of terrorism, even though boring old cars kill eight-four times more people (91)."

My Life As An Experiment has its share of occasional stumbles. "My Outsourced Life," for example, could have been elevated with more citations or personal opinions as to how outsourcing has affected the current American economy. "What Would George Washington Do?" would have worked much better has a strictly historical essay, although Jacobs's attempts to live by Washington's moral code does provide an occasional chuckle. However, even that fault is a highlight of Jacobs's skills as a writer. I'm currently between major reading projects, and opted to read this book as a sort of "break" between other essays and books. This is not meant to be an insult to Mr. Jacobs, but I wasn't expecting the wealth of research and intelligence that went into these essays. It's easy on the scholarly aspects, but provides just enough to warrant further research and studies for anyone who is so inclined. My admiration for his style has increased, especially with his gentle nudges to his readers. He's subconsciously urging us to learn more, and with the well-placed information he provides, his writings are infused with just enough outside information to satisfy a casual reader, but also to satisfy people who want substance, even if they view this as a "casual read."

Work Cited:
Jacobs, A.J. My Life As An Experiment. Copyright 2009 by A.J. Jacobs.

Ill-Fitting Clowes

Even for someone like me, a reader who doesn't partake of many comics or graphic novels, Daniel Clowes is an artist who is at least passingly familiar, which might sound like an insult, but is actually a compliment: Clowes is an artist who has a style that is hard to miss. His cover art for several issues of The New Yorker have been excellent examples of what I take to be his signature: bright colors, a slightly exaggerated comic-book tint, and facial expressions that alternate between bemused and utterly horrified over nothing. The above cover of his latest book, Wilson, is another example. Wilson's head is huge, and his background (both literally and figuratively) is drab and depressing. He's not made out to be hideously ugly, but he's just odd-looking enough to be considered an outsider, and his eyes are drawn to look like he might just burst into tears. No, one should never judge a book by its cover, but the cover of Wilson is both an excellent preview of what's inside, as well as giving nothing about the story away. This immediate contradiction lends itself to the book as well. Wilson is a walking contradiction, a figure both repellent and begging for sympathy.



The opening page of Wilson (above) is entitled "Fellowship." While out walking his dog, he calls himself a people person, and one of his comments refers to another motif in Clowes' work, the balancing of contemporary isolation with the realization that most of our contemporary problems are at times silly.
"Every single one of us has a story to tell, and we're all part of the human family. How tragic that we've lost all sense of community with our fellow man (Clowes 7)!"
Wilson's first interaction leads to a woman bitterly complaining about computer problems, and his misanthropic tendencies are revealed immediately when he asks "For the love of Christ, don't you ever shut up?"
The story follows Wilson through his life, from middle-age to old age, detailing his verbal (and sometimes physical) battles with complete strangers, his family, his ex-wife, and his estranged daughter. The chapters are single paged slices, following a more or less chronological pattern, and most of them end with a typical twist, a "telling-it-like-it-is" moment from Wilson, most of which lead to implied awkward silences. The below passage comes from a conversation between Wilson and his daughter, who was put up for adoption when she was a child, about her adoptive parents. The implication was that Wilson and his ex-wife kidnapped her to either create a perverse composite of a family, or to explore and bring closure to the problems that led to all of them breaking apart to begin with early on. However, the true implication is that Wilson's loner tendencies and psychological problems never would have let them become a normal family.

"And I would hope that raising a child would actually enhance one's sense of community, rather than engendering fear and over-compensatory displays of class and wealth...I mean, Jesus, how many cars does one family need? What kind of example is that? Christ, it's like they're laughing at the next generation! 'Ha ha, I used up all your resources! Fuck you!'...But yeah, they're basically really amazing (Clowes 45)."



In virtually every medium, from film to literature to, in this case, graphic novels, the idea of isolation or personal facades is usually done to mask more honest, underlying problems. However, in Wilson, the character's underlying problems are also his blatant problems. I've only read parts of Clowes' Ghost World, but I've screened Terry Zwigoff's 2001 film version several times. In the film (and, while there are major differences between the film and the book), Enid's sarcasm and hipster outside are used to fend off her feelings of depression and a larger quarter-life crisis. As Wilson gets older, he tries to find happiness with a female neighbor, and learns that he has a grandchild. However, his self-destructive personality makes any sort of relationship doomed from the start. Clowes' writing is witty, dark, and thought-provoking at times; his illustrations are vivid and switch between more "realistic" styles and the intentionally cartoonish. However, for all of the great potential flourishes, Wilson is a work that eventually suffers.

I find it difficult to say that I enjoyed Wilson. The plot is very clear, yet is marked by jumps that, while intended to leave specific events to the imagination, make the linear narrative very unsteady. The emotions work much better when the works are taken as single pieces, much like the last one above. Clowes draws with great visuals and emotion, creating everyday scenes that are as weary and uncomfortable as the, well, everyday. His writing is marked by moments of great dark comedy, creating laugh-out-loud situations in the most unlikely of places. However, Wilson's personality is so abrasive, and his life has taken so many wrong turns, that it's hard to find a balance between the aforementioned sympathy and repulsion. It would be an insult to the reader's intelligence to have the book tied up with a satisfying, optimistic conclusion. The whole point of the work is that Wilson will never be satisfied or optimistic, no matter how hard he tries. However, in between moments of dark comedy, Clowes attempts to hint at more philosophical and sociological matters. These never work, since the reader grows accustomed to waiting for Wilson's punchline, the utterance that will upend any carefully crafted thoughts.

The ideas behind Wilson are refreshing. Instead of the graphic novel norms of hipsters and cliched artists, we're confronted with a tortured, depressed individual with no real motivations. It's a difficult work to write about in any real length, partly because, like any visual media, it's best to be read and seen to be fully appreciated. Clowes is very talented, yet Wilson leaves so much to be desired. More continuity wouldn't hurt the offbeat events, nor make them any less surreal. As a collection of individual pieces, this could potentially work. As a scattered story, the problems end up clouding so much of the meaning. Again, I'm still a relative newcomer to the graphic novel genre, but even taking away a literary analysis and viewing the work on its own, the issues don't go away.

Work/Images Cited:
Clowes, Daniel. Wilson. Copyright 2010 by Daniel Clowes.